review provided by TJ
Title: Ikki Tousen: Great Guardians(anime review)
Director: Koichi Ohata
Author: Yuji Shiozaki
U.S. Distributor: Funimation
Release Date: Dec 31, 2013
Format and Length: DVD; 300 min
Genre: action, ecchi, fantasy
Industry Age Rating: 17+
Overall Personal Rating: C
Similar Series: Other series of Ikki Tousen; Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero
Synopsis:
Each generation, great fighters from the past are reincarnated as new people. These special few are each bound by destiny to fight in an attempt to settle the conflict that the original fighters failed to resolve. Sonsaku Hakufu and Shuuyu Koukin are both both present day fighters of the past. Hakufu is a high school girl who is the “leader” of Nanyo Academy. She lives with Koukin and has basically adopted him as her brother.
A wrench is thrown in to their daily lives when Chuubou Sonken shows up claiming to be Hakufu’s sister. It is accepted she is who she claims when Hakufu’s mother seems to be expecting her.
More questions arise when Ryomou Shimei, a student at Nanyo and friends with Hakufu and Koukin, discovers who she believes is Housen Ryofu passed out. Convinced that Ryofu is supposed to be dead, she takes her back to her apartment and waits until she wakes up. Once Ryofu is awake, it is revealed that she has no idea who she is and seems to have lost all her memory. When Hakufu finds out about this, she takes it upon herself to befriend the lost Ryofu and try to help her recover her memory.
However, all the good times get disrupted when another fighter, Genpou Saji, begins making trouble, both at Nanyo Academy and their rival school Seito Academy.
Commentary:
Ikki Tousen was almost good. It almost had a decent plot. Ikki Tousen is the series that was almost worth the time to watch it. After a few episodes, it gives the feeling that there might be some plot worth paying attention to amidst all the boob shots and panty shots. But after a few more episodes, the plot just gets convoluted and loses all coherence. It actually felt like the creator wanted to create a series that had a good, engaging plot, and lots of fanservice, but then just gave up on the plot half way through.
However the part that the creator did not give up, the fanservice, wasn’t terrible. Ikki Tousen is still alongside all of the other anime that have no idea how physics actually works on boobs, but Ikki Tousen probably got the closest for a ecchi series. And the obligatory beach episode was actually a lot of fun to watch. Bikini-clad girls beat up sharks. That’s not something you see everyday. Ikki Tousen is also the only anime where a girl moons someone as an insult and not a seduction maneuver. So there is at least some originality with the fanservice.
If Ikki Tousen did one thing right it was the character design. Each character looked unique and, even though they were always wearing school uniforms they had their own style about them.
Overall Grade: C
While the plot in Ikki Tousen was severely lacking, it knew what it was. It is an ecchi series, and sometimes has unique ways of pulling it off.
“In the Radius:”
Other similar titles to check out might be other series of Ikki Tousen or Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero
